Domestic Violence

A person’s home should be a place of refuge and a place of safety. For some people, when the weather grows colder, the home can become a place of fear, uncertainty and even violence. The City of Chicago Domestic Violence Help Line/Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network director says that an uptick in violence is expected…

Chicago police officers are getting new training on domestic violence and how to better communicate with domestic violence victims. Mayor Rahm Emmanuel recently announced the creation of a task force that will develop a three-part training program for the city’s police force. The Chicago Police Department receives nearly 200,000 calls per year for domestic violence…

Some Illinois residents may think of domestic violence as being limited to heterosexual couples, but domestic violence for same-sex couples has historically occurred at similar rates. In fact, according to figures from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, one in four non-heterosexual relationships involve some degree of abusive behavior. While domestic abuse varies in form,…

To those on the outside, it is often perplexing why a woman stays with a spouse or a domestic partner who abuses her. However, the average woman in Illinois and throughout the United States makes an average of 10 attempts to leave before she actually does extricate herself from a situation involving domestic violence. Sometimes,…

In many areas of the U.S., including Illinois, “crime-free housing” ordinances could be putting victims of domestic violence in a dangerous and difficult position. Such ordinances stipulate that victims can call the police, but if they do, they could be evicted. According to the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, more than 100 municipalities…

A Chicago anti-violence group named Ceasefire Illinois has named an interim director while it searches for a new permanent replacement for the organization’s previous director. The parent organization, Cure Violence, announced the ouster for the previous director after he had been arrested for domestic violence. The group has announced that the organization’s current COO will…

Many women who live with violence on a day-to-day basis stay with their abusers because they feel they have nowhere to go and no one to turn to for help and support. A new law aimed at stemming the tide of domestic violence in Illinois and the rest of the country, however, may provide new…